STAGE REVIEW : ‘Lady and the Clarinet’ Hits Right Note

Michael Cristofer’s comedy “The Lady and the Clarinet” explores aspects of love from a tantalizingly abstract perspective. Cristofer doesn’t provide any easy answers concerning questions of the heart, he simply poses more questions. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright doesn’t dissect and analyze human relationships, but instead demonstrates love’s ability to manipulate human behavior.

The San Diego Actors Theatre is now presenting a stimulating, passionate production of Cristofer’s play at the Elizabeth North Theatre. Under artistic director Patricia Elmore’s precise, intelligent direction, a five person cast performs Cristofer’s play with utmost zeal and imagination.

The play opens to find Luba (Dana Hooley) preparing for a dinner date at her home. She has hired a live musician--a clarinet player (John Mula)--to provide musical accompaniment for the evening, and the initial conversations on stage consist of Luba talking to the clarinet player. Interestingly, the clarinet player never speaks his answers to any of Luba’s inquiries, but, rather, responds only by playing music. Undaunted by his “silence,” Luba sets out to tell the story of her love-life as she prepares for the date.

“This is not just another dinner,” Luba tells the musician as she sets the table. “I want it to be different this time. Just me and one other person--that’s it.”

Things don’t work out that way. In fact, the expected guest never arrives and dinner never gets served. Instead, Luba embarks on a sweeping, elliptical trip down memory lane, recalling and re-enacting past liaisons with the three men she has “had.”

Luba’s love encounters run the gamut of sexual experience. Three interlocking scenes detail Luba’s first adolescent “practice” sessions with geeky, 19-year-old Paul (Todd Pickering); an adulterous affair with wealthy advertising executive Jack (Ron Choularton); and her marriage to George (Jack Pritchard), a wealthy, doting older man.

Playwright Cristofer constructed “The Lady and the Clarinet” without a traditional plot or cause-and-effect story line. Instead, the action takes place in Luba’s memory and the various vignettes flow like music. The play weaves in and out of emotional interludes like movements in a symphony, making no attempt to explain theories, but merely to present situations.

Cristofer’s vision crystallizes in one particular scene, late in the play. When Luba reaches the height of her confusion about love, she asks the clarinet player to explain what’s going on with her emotions. The clarinet player simply shrugs. Luba takes this as a definitive answer. “Never mind,” she says. “Sorry I asked.”

In that powerful instant, Luba accepts that she won’t ever truly understand her emotions. Comforted by this revelation, she whirls around the stage with an exuberantly wide smile, and in a flourish she beseeches the musician: “Just play!”

Thinking too much will be your downfall, Cristofer tells the audience. “Just play” your way through life seems to be Cristofer’s overriding message.

As the mercurial, dynamic Luba, San Diego native Dana Hooley takes control of the stage and never relinquishes her command. Hooley, who is on stage nonstop throughout the 90-minute show, pushes every scene to its emotional extreme and gives a rich, multilayered performance. Hooley crafts a consistent character for Luba throughout, despite the fact that she must play Luba as a precocious 16-year-old, as well as an older, more sophisticated adult.

The three supporting men give earnest, gutsy performances. Todd Pickering’s Paul is perhaps a trifle too goofy, but the lanky actor’s energy and comic timing are right on target. As the older man, Jack Pritchard’s quiet confidence and casual demeanor clashes appropriately with the high-strung Luba.

Ron Choularton’s depiction of the adulterous Jack is brilliant. Choularton shifts between comedy and tragedy with grace and precision, drawing laughs of both pity and humor from the audience as his character attempts to make sense out of the world. At one point, Jack acknowledges that his life is in shambles, observing: “I make $200,000 a year, and my children have rickets.”

Choularton captures the absurdity of this and other moments without missing a beat. As the troupe’s name suggests, the San Diego Actors Theatre focuses on the art of performance. Design elements take a back seat to acting in this show, but Erik Hanson’s minimal set, Ingrid Helton’s unobtrusive costumes and Laura Schynder’s functional lighting design all augment the action on stage.

In the San Diego Actors Theatre’s five-year history it has staged a handful of interesting plays, many of them wonderful vehicles for actors. Past San Diego Actors Theatre productions include acclaimed stagings of Beth Henley’s “Miss Firecracker Contest,” A.R. Gurney’s “The Perfect Party” and Lee Blessing’s “Eleemosynary.”

Add Michael Cristofer’s “The Lady and the Clarinet” to the list. This is an intelligent, thought-provoking, humorous, wholly entertaining production.

“THE LADY AND THE CLARINET”

A San Diego Actors Theatre production. By Michael Cristofer. Director is Patricia Elmore. Score by Stanley Silverman. Set by Erik Hanson. Sound by Lawrence Czoka. Lighting by Laura Schynder. Costumes by Ingrid Helton. Stage manager is Sue Schaffner. With Dana Hooley, John Mula, Todd Pickering, Ron Choularton and Jack Pritchard. At 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays, through June 30. Tickets are $15-$17. Elizabeth North Theatre, 547 Fourth Ave., downtown. 268-4494.